The Bone Chamber

9

“About breakfast?” Scotty asked again when they reached the car.
Sydney slid into the front passenger seat, glanced at her watch. “I need to pack a few things I forgot the first time around. Maybe you could drop me off at my apartment, grab us some fast food, come back, get me, and we can head straight to the airport.”
“Special requests?” Scotty asked, backing out of the parking space, then having to stop for two young women who darted in front of the car, probably late for a class.
“Anything.”
Which seemed to suit Scotty fine, especially the part about heading straight to the airport, no doubt because he thought it would keep her out of trouble. The moment he dropped her off in front of her building, she ran upstairs with her briefcase and overnight bag, shoved her key in the lock and threw open the door, tossed everything down, then opened her cell phone. Several phone calls later, Sydney was no closer to learning Zach Griffin’s true identity. He wasn’t answering his phone, and his so-called boss at the “newspaper” he worked for said he was leaving the country on an editorial assignment. Her next call was to a contact at CIA. Which netted her zero results. If Griffin was CIA, they weren’t admitting any association to him. But Griffin definitely worked for a governmental agency, because someone had to fund all the bells and whistles to his so-called newspaper job, and no way could he step onto the grounds at Quantico, arrange for a private plane and a forensic drawing, never mind the cooperation of her bosses, if someone high up the food chain wasn’t pulling some strings.
Right now the only thing she’d deduced was that he was leaving the country. So where the hell was he going?
Rome, Italy.
Had to be. If the victim’s father was the ambassador to the Holy See, then Sydney’s money was on Zach Griffin flying to Rome. She scrolled through a list of names in her cell phone, finding the number for Jonathon Levins, her contact at Homeland Security. “I need a favor. How quickly can you check outgoing flight records and see if there’s a Zach Griffin departing on any of them?” she asked on a hunch, since she didn’t know if that was his real name, a cover, or even a name he’d use for travel.
“From which airport?” Levins asked.
“Dulles? Probably an international flight, and if you want it narrowed further, to Rome.”
“What am I putting down for the reason?”
“You want the unvarnished truth or a close proximity?”
“Since when are you one for skirting rules?”
“Since circumstances dictated it. Look, I can’t go into anything, but you know me, and you know I wouldn’t be asking if it weren’t important. Everything’s on the up-and-up, I’m just going about it in an…abstract manner. So, if anyone asks, the case is a missing person, probable kidnap, possible homicide.”
“Victim?”
She thought of the article, decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to publicize what the CIA, or whoever the hell they were, didn’t want publicized. Even so, no one seemed too worried about the man Alessandra had been with at the time of her death, no one except Penny Dearborn. And since he was still missing, that made it legitimate. “Xavier Caldwell.”
“Got it. I’ll call you back.”
The next call Sydney made was to Tony Carillo in San Francisco. “Good morning, merry sunshine,” she said.
“Morning, yes. Good, it depends on why you’re calling. Can’t you let a guy finish a cup of coffee first?”
“You didn’t happen to hear the rumor about the security guard at the Smithsonian who tried to kill me last night, did you?”
“Missed that one. So fill me in.”
“I can’t. I just want to let you know where I’ll be, in case something happens.”
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“It’s possible I could face disciplinary action, maybe even just by telling you what happened. Not only that, but I need some things looked into that might also lead to…issues. Things on the QT.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re keeping secrets from the government to assist in something that, as far as I know, might be questionable, and might result in disciplinary action?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Something that if you discuss with me, I could also face disciplinary action?”
“Yep.”
“Like being-terminated-type action?” When she didn’t respond, he said, “I’ll take that as a yes. Which is why you don’t want me involved.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. I get it. So what exactly am I not getting involved in?”
She told him the information about her anthropologist friend, killed in an alleged hit-and-run, and her upcoming trip to Rome.
“Why Rome?”
“That forensic drawing I did? It was a girl with a missing face. A girl whose father happens to be ambassador to the Holy See.”
“The Holy…shit. You’re kidding me, right?”
“I’m about to head to the airport to get on a plane to Rome to follow some guy who works for some as of yet unknown branch of the government, so, no, I’m not kidding. What I really need is for you to either talk me out of this, or find out what you can on a certain congressman that this girl was with before she was killed.”
“Congressman?”
“A couple months ago, there was a newspaper article linking the ambassador’s daughter with a married congressman. She was allegedly sent home to Italy when it was rumored the two were having an affair. Might be interesting to talk to the man. It wouldn’t be the first time a girl was found dead after an affair with a married politician.”
“You think that’s why everything’s being kept so hush-hush? Someone trying to save this congressman’s career? Wait. Don’t answer that. I’m not supposed to be getting involved. Remember?”
“Remember what? A conversation we never had? Don’t suppose you have any investigations that would take you to D.C.?”
“I’m sure I could scrape up something.”
“I don’t yet know where she was killed, but her body was found at the Smithsonian. One of the guys that came after me was wearing a Smithsonian security uniform, and he stepped out of the very building located next to said crime scene. Makes me wonder if she wasn’t killed inside, and the body moved. Another part of me wonders if this security guard wasn’t stationed there as a means of watching who might come poking around about her death.”
“And you walked right into it?”
“There were extenuating circumstances.”
“You don’t think the guy was stupid enough to kill her in front of some security camera?”
“We could only hope,” she told him. “Actually I’d be happy just to trace her last steps. Pull those security tapes, see if she’s wandering around, admiring the artwork, or if she’s there for a purpose.”
“Or if she’s there at all.”
“Which is why we need to look into this congressman connection.”
“Call me when you get to Rome. Let me know where you’re staying.”